The actor was tipped to become Bond at the height of his career – but producer Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli wanted a taller star, according to scriptwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who penned The Man With The Golden Gun and Live And Let Die.
Mankiewicz explains, “At one point Mel Gibson wanted to play Bond. And Cubby was against it. Cubby first of all had a thing about tall people. Bond had to be tall. And so Mel Gibson was too short. But he was a big star.
“Somebody at (film studio) United Artists said to me, ‘Call him and tell him Mel Gibson would be great.’ And Cubby said, ‘I don’t want to make a Mel Gibson movie, I want to make a James Bond movie.'”
The snub didn’t keep Gibson from wooing one of Bond’s girls – his current partner Oksana Grigorieva has an 11-year-old son with former 007 star Timothy Dalton.
